Re: Seeking feedback on IAAP certification roadmap

Tony,

On Sat, 12 Apr 2014 02:48:09 +0200, <Tony.Jasionowski@us.panasonic.com>  
wrote:

> Charles,
> As an example please provide more details regarding the voting machine  
> use case:

It wasn't my use case. I was merely explaining a point you seemed to have  
clearly missed from Phill's mail.

> "the people who need ot certify voting systems are  looking for some way
> of knowing who is a reliable professional in accessibility, beyond "ask
> lots of people for recommendations and work it out for yourself".
> Specifically, how will you do above and for which country?

The standard mechanism of finding someone qualified to work in a field is  
to look for someone with "recognised qualifications". When you want  
medical or dental care, I assume you look for someone who has training, or  
is a recognised member of a professional body you believe in. If you  
don't, fine, but many people do (and many more simply assume that people  
can't practise medicine unless they are qualified - which isn't entirely  
true, but is near enough to true that it saves a lot of lives).

Providing accessibility for people with disabilities in the US isn't that  
different from doing it in the UK, Australia, or South Africa - although  
knowing how to weasel out of doing more than the minimum "required" is  
indeed different.

As several people pointed out, WCAG is considered best practise in many  
countries. So at the very least, demonstrating someone has a sound  
technical understanding of WCAG - what it means, what it achieves, and  
what else there is to consider - gives a pretty good clue that they have a  
good grasp of many of the key skills required to claim professional  
expertise in accessibility.

In my opinion knowledge of WCAG is not, on its own, sufficient. I'd think  
people need to understand ATAG and UAAG as well, since if you can deal  
with documents but not applications which have their own interface, and in  
particular the tricky classof those related to producing content for the  
Web, you're not going to be demonstrably useful to my company, and I  
suspect not to the people dealing with electronic voting, either.

Which is one reason I strongly encourage the IAAP, if they are going to  
work on this, to focus on certifying people as having the knowledge a  
professional requires to achieve accessibility, not to meet some local set  
of minimum requirements.

This would mean that the certification is about as relevant in Tbilisi,  
Georgia as it is in Atlanta, Georgia. And in turn justify international  
experts putting their time into making the certification useful in the  
first place, and allow NIST to know that they are getting someone whose  
certification has been vetted internationally rather than by a small local  
lobby group.

cheers

Chaals

> Thanks.
> Tony
>
>
>
> Tony Jasionowski
> Senior Group Manager Accessibility
> Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company
> Two Riverfront Plaza, 9th Floor
> Newark, NJ 07102
> Email: tony.jasionowski@us.panasonic.com
> Tel/Fax: 201-348-7777
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From:   "Charles McCathie Nevile" <chaals@yandex-team.ru>
> To:     "Phill Jenkins" <pjenkins@us.ibm.com>,
> Tony.Jasionowski@us.panasonic.com,
> Cc:     w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Date:   04/11/2014 06:31 PM
> Subject:        Re: Seeking feedback on IAAP certification roadmap
>
>
>
> On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 20:13:31 +0200, <Tony.Jasionowski@us.panasonic.com>
> wrote:
>
> Phil,
> The certifying of voting machines is a very narrow specific case of
> accessibility. Will IAAP have many different types of certification to
> cover each specific use case like voting machines? If yes, can you  
> provide
> more details around the types of certifications?
>
> I didn't read the use case as being around certifying voting machines.  
> But
> the people who need ot certify voting systems are  looking for some way  
> of
> knowing who is a reliable professional in accessibility, beyond "ask lots
> of people for recommendations and work it out for yourself".
>
> Which is indeed the point of a certification scheme (and why, if we get
> one that works, it needs to be really well done).
>
> cheers
>
>
> Thanks.
> Tony
>
> Tony Jasionowski
> Senior Group Manager Accessibility
> Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company
> Two Riverfront Plaza, 9th Floor
> Newark, NJ 07102
> Email: tony.jasionowski@us.panasonic.com
> Tel/Fax: 201-348-7777
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From:        Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com>
> To:        Sharron Rush <srush@knowbility.org>,
> Cc:        w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Date:        04/10/2014 01:06 PM
> Subject:        Re: Seeking feedback on IAAP certification roadmap
>
>
>
> Sharron,
> two great questions that I'll weigh in on.
>
> 1: "What is the problem we are addressing with certification and how is  
> it
> solved?"
> Here is a use case that explains one problem:  NIST in the USA is tasked
> with certifying voting machines and the whole system (management,
> preparation, voting day operations, etc.) for accessibility compliance to
> guidelines and standards.  When a certifying company (agency or
> consultant) takes on the certifying tasks, some guidelines or criteria
> were asked for on how to know who could be qualified and hired to do the
> work.  There were nor recognized or published criteria to be found.  So,
> the team started writing up some basic criteria they thought about, such
> as a Master degree, a few years of experience, etc.  But they soon had
> additional questions to answer: which master's degree?  how many years?
> and experience in what?   The IAAP professional certification program
> would help NIST examine and determine if an IAAP certified processional
> would be sufficient and/or necessary to meet their needs.  It would also
> help NIST better understand their own extended criteria & needs (which is
> frankly part of the problem we are solving for our accessibility  
> community
> too).
>
> 2: "It is unlikely that employers or others will choose certification  
> over
> years of proven experience" [OK, not a question, but not a given either  
> in
> my opinion]
> I believe another problem IAAP Certification is solving is how to
> consistently and with some confidence be able to answer the questions:
> "what does years of proven experience" mean or equate to and give the
> employer?  e.g. how many years of experience is appropriate to be used to
> certify an individual as professional?  What kinds of experience? e.g. I
> ran a usability study with participants with disabilities vs I
> participated in a usability study; what kind of knowledge? e.g. I know
> where to find and use WCAG techniques, vs I was on the working group that
> wrote WCAG; I know which assistive technologies would be appropriate for  
> a
> accessibility assessment, vs a knowledge of the difference between AT's
> from both an end user's perspective and a testing perspective;  etc. I
> suppose I',m starting to write the questions for the certification test,
> sorry.   In other words, a certification MUST explain what it represents
> and perhaps how it is equivalent to years of accessibility experience,
> proving the ability to do an accessibility assessment of  web sites, etc.
> so that the employer or decision maker (e.g. NIST) can decide if that
> persons has the necessary qualifications and skills. I believe if we can
> write up the necessary list of skills a certification test can be written
> to benefit the community and our stake holders.
>
> I'm not representing IBM, the Access Board, nor IAAP on my response, but
> simply contributing to the groups' thinking and possibly helping Paul get
> more information documented.
> ____________________________________________
> Regards,
> Phill Jenkins,
> Senior Accessibility Engineer & Business Development Executive
> IBM Research - Human Ability & Accessibility Center
> http://www.ibm.com/able
> http://www.facebook.com/IBMAccessibility
> http://twitter.com/IBMAccess
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/philljenkins
>
>
>
> From:        Sharron Rush <srush@knowbility.org>
> To:        w3c-wai-ig@w3.org,
> Date:        04/09/2014 10:54 AM
> Subject:        Re: Seeking feedback on IAAP certification roadmap
>
>
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> These are important questions, I am glad that the IAAP is asking them.  I
> would add this one: What exactly is the problem meant to be solved by the
> certification process?  I have heard several but none seems aligned with
> the Roadmap that you present here.  So I guess the follow on question
> would be: How does the certification process solve that problem?
>
> I looked on the "About IAAP" page for an answer to my question of "What  
> is
> the problem we are addressing with certification and how is it solved?"
> The closest I can find is under "Individual Professional Development"
> which says:
> "Develop and implement activities, including a certification program, to
> enable professionals working in accessibility and those interested in
> knowing more about accessibility to influence and implement accessibility
> within any organization." Not sure what that means - can you explain? is
> it focused on web accessibility? physical accessibility? both? and for
> whom exactly?
>
> It is lovely to see people working together for a common goal of  
> improving
> awareness and skills around digital accessibility (and I will assume for
> the sake of discussion that is what is meant).  I strongly agree with the
> fact that inclusive design thinking is needed and is needed throughout an
> organization, not simply among tech people.  But if that is the problem,
> isn't Lars' solution by far the better one? Should our efforts not be put
> to integrating accessibility awareness and skills training into existing
> educational programs for project management, programming, design,
> engineering, communications, etc?  It seems that the last thing we want  
> is
> for accessibility to be once more shoehorned into a "special" category,
> like "special" education that seems to be aimed at a particular (and
> somehow different) group of people.  Do we not, rather want to see broad
> thinking about human interaction integrated seamlessly into the way  
> people
> are trained for digital communications professions?
>
> I don't think, as others seem to, there is anything to fear from a
> certification program.  It is unlikely that employers or others will
> choose certification over years of proven experience.  Most are quite
> familiar with the empty promise of some skills certification programs, I
> am thinking now of usability certifications, a closely related field. But
> I also see so little to gain and find myself wishing that this much  
> energy
> and effort were being expended on an initiative that could really make a
> difference. I am simply not convinced that this is it.
>
> I don't mean to be a wet blanket and I thought a while about just letting
> this go its course and remaining silent.  But as I said, it is exciting  
> to
> see people begin to take action and I appreciate the way you address the
> concerns that have been raised, Paul.  So I share my perspective in the
> hope of being helpful in focusing the efforts of IAAP on a course of
> action that might produce more useful outcomes than building yet another
> certification.
>
> Sincerely,
> Sharron
> ------------------------------
> Sharron Rush | Executive Director | Knowbility.org
> Equal access to technology for people with disabilities
> Learn web accessibility from nose to tail at AccessU
>
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-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Saturday, 12 April 2014 18:00:19 UTC